


Did Nothing Happen Here

by alyyks



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt CT-7567 | Rex, Major Character Injury, Post-Umbara Arc (Star Wars), hurt/a little bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: The quiet times can be as fraught as the battles, in the uncertainty of everything after Umbara. Left behind, there's only time for the quiet.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	Did Nothing Happen Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antonomasia09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/gifts).



> Happy birthday to youuuuu, happy birthday to yoooooouuuuuuu
> 
> ;)

Because Kix tended to be quiet, people forgot he was 501st. And to be 501st, the bastard energy inherited straight from Prime had to be up front and center. Kix knew how to wait until his mostly-unsuspecting victims were running head first by themselves into the trap he had laid, and then get his way. 

Or, as he preferred to put it: “If you burn yourself first, I don’t have to waste my breath explaining why you’re going to burn yourself and then roll my eyes when it happens anyway because you’re not listening to me.”

So Kix was there, somewhere, Rex knew it. And Kix was waiting until Rex could breath through the screaming agony that was his back to explain how, exactly, he was not to move for the foreseeable future. Rex’s breath came in faster, shallower — it hurt too much for him not to be in bacta, and through the pain, he could see, hear, feel, more. It was wrong: the sounds, the smells, the weight he had pushed from on top of him. There wasn’t the faint rumbling of a ship in transit he could only half-perceive as safety, because nothing and nowhere was safe. It wasn’t the too brief lull in a battle. 

Rex blinked, his eyes strangely gritty and heavy. It wasn’t the light metal of a ship’s interior above his head. He blinked again, and the light wherever he was wasn’t powerful enough to reveal more than a vague darkness.

“Don’t try to move again,” and that was Kix. Kix who also had his hands on Rex’s shoulders, keeping down with just the right amount of force that heralded nothing good. “How’s your breathing?”

"What happened?" Rex croaked. They had been on day three of routing clankers off from the mining access of… whatever planet this was, Ahsoka and General Skywalker gone to the capital to negotiate with the local government for more supplies, more freedom of movement. The minute Skywalker and Ahsoka had left his field of vision, Rex hadn’t been able to shake the mounting anxiety of keeping his men alive, of staying alert for traps, any traps, of knowing that there was no safety for them should he step wrong—or step right. 

When Rex closed his eyes, he saw the blue twilight of Umbara, empty helmets, and slashes of burning color. 

“Torrent was separated from the rest of the 501st as we were pushing back the bulk of the Seppies. The pass was bombed - no droid remains.” Kix took a breath. “Are you going to try to move if I let go?” 

Rex swallowed, tried to calm his racing heart. Wherever they were was too dark. “No. Where are we?” A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, beyond Kix, and it was a blue and white armor— Kix was talking, and Rex had to focus. 

“Terdel - closest village to the mines. All of Torrent is accounted for, Jesse took command.” Which each word, Rex’s breath came in a bit easier, if painfully. Physical pain, he could deal with. “Aside from you, there’s an assortment of broken bones and minor injuries, but nothing that would stop us from moving fast if needed.” 

“Why,” Rex started, wetted his lips. Wherever they were was getting a bit more refined as he was getting used to the light — firelights and candles, the odd glowglobe stuck on wood pillars. It looked like a long hall, or empty barracks, large enough for Torrent to bed down. He couldn’t see the exits. It was most certainly not a starship. “Why are we not on the _Resolute_ ,” he asked. 

Kix’s mouth twisted. “The 501st was recalled, and the _Resolute_ didn’t have the time to send us evacuation larties.” 

Rex startled, moved, and the pain wasn’t enough to break through the panic. “What—“ 

“Captain!” That was Jesse’s voice, pushing through, and there he was, standing behind Kix and throwing Rex the most textbook perfect salute he had seen since Kamino. The thought that even Alpha-17 would not find fault in it derailed Rex’s thoughts for a moment, but a moment only. It was long enough for Jesse to take his helmet off and shoot him a worried look. 

Rex took the pain, the panic he refused to examine, the uncertainty, and got angry. Angry at himself, the situation, whatever injury he had. “Sitrep,” he gritted out. 

“Sir yes sir,” Jesse replied. “Torrent is accounted for — we have 83 brothers here, counting you. All the others were far enough from the bombing that they could hitch a ride back to the Resolute with the remaining larties. Fives’ up there too. He had the time to comm before they went to hyperspace that he had tried to get them to send pickup, but to no avail.”

“The Seps?” What Rex had until now taken for silence wasn’t. There was a murmur of voices further into the hall, the crackling of fire, and noises that suggested there was more going on outside, a whole town continuing to live. 

“Completely routed out, there’s not a droid remaining. To be honest, it feels like they were just there to make us waste time. The Resolute was recalled because there were simultaneous attacks on the shipyards of Corellia, Kuat and Byblos.”

 _Fuck_. Rex closed his eyes. Those were all too close to the Core. Of course the 501st and the Hero Without Fear would be recalled closer, to reassure everyone but mostly the propaganda machine. Torrent hadn’t been forgotten, not exactly. Rex breathed in, heartrate slowing down and the anger going back to the simmer he lived every day with. When he opened his eyes, the looks passing between Kix and Jesse showed they were thinking along the same lines. 

“So we prepare to wait until we can get picked up. How long can we stay, and what are our rations at?” 

“Terdel’s opened up their hall for our use,” Jesse gestured with his hand at the hall around them. “Rations would last a couple rotations, but the village leader has approached us to provide hard labor in exchange for food and water.” 

“I thought the locals were hostile.” That had been part of the reason why General Skywalker had been going to the capital, after all. Rex moved, forgetting for an instant that something was wrong with him and staying flat was for the best. The stab of white pain quickly reminded him. 

“Internal politics,” he could hear Jesse say from too far away to be comfortable, ”from everything we’ve been able to hear. The capital might not like us, but here there’s only about fifty people without counting the hunters higher up the mountains and they can’t be too picky about who can help do the heavy lifting.” Jesse sighed, and crouched down, head level with Rex’s. “We need you, sir, but we need you in one piece.”

Rex closed his eyes, gave one tight nod. Jesse had this in hand. If Rex couldn’t trust him, well. That thought was one uncomfortable burst of paranoia.

When he opened his eyes next, Kix was still there, sitting by his side. Rex couldn’t see what exactly he was sitting on.

“How badly did I get injured?” 

Kix sighed, didn’t look right at him. He busied himself with water and a wooden container, before pushing the container at Rex with one hand, his other going to support Rex’s head. Whatever was in the water was more bitter than anything Rex had ever had in his mouth, and he had to fight not to spit it back out.

“They shared medicine, too — that’s their best painkiller. Doubles as anti-inflammatory. Now that’s you’re awake, I’ll want you to take that once every four hours.”

“That’s not— not answering my question.” 

“Bad enough that I’d have you in a tank and not getting you out for a solid rotation.” That was fear, on Kix’s face, naked fear and the anger Rex saw in the eyes of every Umbara survivor. Rex, fleetingly, wondered if Kix hated him for what had happened then. “We didn’t have enough bacta patches, and all the bacta on the planet is at the capital in selected hospitals, and only for life and death situations. There’s no way to get any.” Kix lifted his head. “You have one bacta patch on the worst of it, but if you move wrong— right scapula and ribs from 3 to 7 are fractured, and won’t take much to be outright broken. Flail chest is a possibility, even if you’re breathing okay now. Your backplate did its job and then broke, I had to dig fragments out of you. Right elbow is fractured as well, and I don’t think there’s anywhere you’re not bruised.”

They stayed silent for a moment. Behind Kix, Rex could see on the other side of the hall, and the wooden couches covered in furs and cushions along the wall. He supposed the side he was on, and what he was lying on, was the same. He could see a white and blue greave, the attached boot on the floor, further away, but not the brother they belonged to, hidden behind a pillar.

“Got caught in the blast,” Rex finally said. He didn’t remember the bombs that finished the droids and their fight. 

“The edges. If it had been the blast…” Kix trailed off. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Try to sleep, try not to move. I’d rather not perform surgery in those circumstances.” He stood up. “I’ll be back in a few. If you need anything in the meantime, there’s a squad close to the entrance behind you. They’ll hear you.”

“My armor?” Rex asked. He could feel that he was only the lower part of his black, and bandages. Everything else on him was strangely familiar-unfamiliar, smelling ever so faintly of the memories of a barn on Saleucami, heavy and warm—blankets and furs.

Kix dragged something from under the wooden bench Rex was lying on. When he straightened up, he was holding a crate. Rex’s helmet was on top. There were new scratches on the plastoid, but the jaig eyes were still there. Kix lifted the helmet and put it by Rex’s mostly-non-injured side. Rex’s DC pistol was next, slid under the covers. Rex breathed out. 

“There’s no GAR comm relay in reach, all our transmissions have to through the civilian relays at the capital,” Kix said. 

They’d need to prep a coded sending, see who was closest, who could pick them up before the situation lasted more than a couple of rotations. Rex nodded. The horribly bitter drink was starting to work, blunting the edges of the pain. “When you come back, bring Jesse and… whoever he picked as his second.” 

Kix nodded, put his helmet on, and left. Rex didn’t try to crane his neck to figure out where he had gone exactly. 

He put his hand on his helmet, his face, tried to find a semblance of order in his thoughts, tried to tamp down the anger. He’d send coded messages to Cody and Wolffe—the first to confirm he and Torrent weren’t dead, the second to see if the 104th was close enough to pick them soon. The Sep might have left the planet, but they were too exposed, too easy picking. They were a weak point.

Rex refused to let another brother die because he had put his trust in the wrong person—because he had listened to the wrong order. 


End file.
